JEDDAH, 13 January 2008 — Professor Shih Choon Fong, president of the National University of Singapore, has been appointed the president of King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal near Jeddah.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, whose brainchild is KAUST, received Shih and his wife at his palace in Riyadh on the occasion of his appointment. “The king congratulated pprofessor Shih on his appointment and hoped that all staff of the university, including scientists, researchers and administrators, will do their best to achieve the objectives for which the university is being established,” the Saudi Press Agency reported quoting an official statement.
Shih thanked King Abdullah for receiving him and expressed his happiness at being the first president of the new international research university.
Shih received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1973. Thereafter, he led the Fracture Research Group at the GE Corporate Research Lab in the US. In 1981, he joined Brown University.
Shih has made significant contributions in nonlinear fracture mechanics and computational methods for fracture analyses. He has about 150 publications in leading scientific journals to his credit.
A member of KAUST’s International Advisory Council, Shih is among the highly cited researchers in the world for the category of engineering compiled by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Shih has been a consultant to the National Aeronautics Space Administration, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
King Abdullah laid the foundation stone for the SR10 billion university complex in October last year. Speaking at the ceremony, the king exuded optimism that the new university would serve as a bridge between cultures and nations, and a lighthouse of knowledge.
